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Sad Beautiful Tragic

RED (2012) | RED (Taylor's Version) [2021]

“Sad Beautiful Tragic” is track twelve on Taylor’s fourth studio album, RED (2012). In the song, she is reflecting on a failed relationship that was sad, beautiful and tragic. The re-recording of the song, “Sad Beautiful Tragic (Taylor’s Version),” was released on November 12, 2021, on the album RED (Taylor’s Version).

Background and Recording

Taylor penned the hushed, intimate “Sad Beautiful Tragic” when she was sitting on her tour bus after a show on the “Speak Now World Tour“. She was thinking about a relationship that had ended several months prior. She explained the meaning of the song to Billboard:

«‘Sad Beautiful Tragic’ is really close to my heart. I remember it was after a show and I was on the bus thinking about this relationship that ended months and months before. The feeling wasn’t sadness and anger or those things anymore. It was wistful loss. And so I just got my guitar and I hit on the fact that I was thinking in terms of rhyming; I rhymed magic with tragic, changed a few things and ended it with what a sad beautiful tragic love affair. I wanted to tell the story in terms of a cloudy recollection of what went wrong. It’s kind of the murky gray, looking back on something you can’t change or get back.»

Taylor Swift

Taylor said that she only recorded the song once because the first take captured the emotion she felt while writing the song perfectly. She also didn’t want to add too much production to the track in order to keep the listener’s focus on the lyrics. She told Good Morning America in 2012: “I was on a tour bus that was moving and I just started playing this really haunting, sad chorus, and it was very simple, “What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair.” It was just reflecting on something that was lost and you can’t get it back. I went home and I called Nathan Chapman and said, ‘Hey, I wrote this song. Please, please, please, can we record today?’ and, of course, he said, ‘Yes,’ and we used that original demo on the album, because it just kind of came across so pure and raw.”

Lyrical Theme

RED covers the whole spectrum of emotions. For Taylor, “Sad Beautiful Tragic” explores the feeling of “wistful loss.” She told Billboard in 2012:

«The feeling wasn't sadness and anger, or those things anymore. It was wistful loss. And so I just got my guitar and I hit on the fact that I was thinking in terms of rhyming; I rhymed magic with tragic, changed a few things and ended it with, 'What a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair.' I wanted to tell the story in terms of a cloudy recollection of what went wrong. It's kind of the murky gray, looking back on something you can't change or get back.»

Taylor Swift

Live Performances

Taylor didn’t include “Sad Beautiful Tragic” on the regular setlist for “The RED Tour” (2013-2014). However, she performed the track as the acoustic surprise song twice: the first time being on the tour’s stop in St. Paul (Minnesota) on September 8, 2013, and the second being the final show of the US leg at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville (Tennessee) on September 21, 2013. Ten years later, “Sad Beautiful Tragic” was a surprise song on “The Eras Tour” (2023-2024) in Arlington, on March 31, 2023. When she introduced the song, Taylor said:

«I was taking a chance with this one, because I'm not sure if you guys love this one or not, or if you just like it, or if you're obsessed with it. It could be anything, really. I love this one, and when I love something I don't really care what the feedback is, so I didn't check. This is a song that I wrote that's just like a simple, wistful, sad song that I love: It's this very sad, beautiful, tragic song. I'm not sure if I've played this live before, but if I have, it would be like one time before...Always think before you speak – something to learn from what just happened.»

Taylor Swift

On July 9, 2024, she played an acoustic mashup of the song with “Last Kiss” (2010) on piano in Zurich. That night, she introduced the acoustic section by saying: “So, tonight is our 113th show of ‘The Eras Tour,’ and that’s my favorite number, which I never mention, it’s like a secret, no one knows that. But I just thought, since it’s my favorite number, I’d just do some of my favorite songs for the acoustic set and see if they’re yours too!” On August 16, 2024, she paired the song with “Dear John” (2010) in London.

Commercial Performance

Upon the release of RED (Taylor’s Version), “Sad Beautiful Tragic (Taylor’s Version)” debuted and peaked at No. 85 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the week ending November 26, 2021.

Taylor's Version

On August 6, 2021, Taylor announced that a re-recorded version of “Sad Beautiful Tragic”, titled “Sad Beautiful Tragic (Taylor’s Version)”, would be included on her second re-recorded album RED (Taylor’s Version), which was released on November 12, 2021, through Republic Records.

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Long handwritten note, deep in your pocket
Words, how little they mean when you’re a little too late
I stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket
Good girls, hopeful they’ll be and long they will wait

[Chorus]
We had…
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad…
Beautiful, tragic love affair

[Verse 2]
In dreams, I meet you in warm conversation
We both wake in lonely beds, different cities
And time is taking its sweet time erasing you
And you’ve got your demons and darling
They all look like me, ’cause

[Chorus]
We had…
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad…
Beautiful, tragic love affair

[Bridge]
Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting
Silence, the train runs off its tracks
Kiss me, try to fix it
Could you just try to listen?
Hang up, give up, and for the life of us
We can’t get back…

[Chorus Variation]
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad…
Beautiful, tragic, beautiful, tragic
Beautiful

[Chorus]
We had…
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad…
Beautiful, tragic love affair

[Final Chorus]
We had…
A beautiful, magic love there
What a sad…
Beautiful, tragic love affair